Resources for assessing the home language competences of migrant pupils

A meeting of the Recolang team was held on 21-23 June in a hybrid format, with part of the team meeting in Graz and the others participating online. The meeting enabled the team to reflect on the organisation and structure of the site’s content (texts, graphics, illustrations, etc.) based on the outputs already developed by the team and the collaborative activities linked to the project (the network meeting and workshop, in particular), with the aim of finalising the production by the end of 2022. The content has been restructured into 4 parts, reflecting the site’s target audiences and the envisaged medium of the output (a multimodal format involving a combination of graphic objects and short texts, structured precisely within a defined framework). The team thus reconsidered the resources to be produced in accordance with the objectives and social issues linked to the project, with a view to 

1. provide scientific knowledge and insights related to the evaluation of home language competences, the values that these practices allow in their implementation, 
2. identify tools (for evaluation, training) based on known devices and collected during the collaborative events of the project, and taking into account the diversity of contexts and situations of the pupils in the educational system, 
3. involve the visitors to the site whatever their role (pupils, families, teachers, trainers, political stakeholders.. ) to participate, to promote these evaluation practices as well as their effects on the bi/plurilingual development of pupils and to achieving  equity in education.

Author: Isabelle Audras, coordinator of the project “Recolang - Resources for assessing the home language competences of migrant pupils”, supported by signatory  states to the European Cultural Convention

Related links

• www.ecml.at/homelanguagecompetences

The online workshop, which took place on 2-3 December 2021, focused on the rationale, objectives and methods for the assessment of the home language competences of plurilingual students with the overall aim of enhancing professional support for young migrants’ learning and for their educational pathways.

In collaboration with the project team, the workshop participants identified needs related to assessment practices and materials, drawing on initial results of the RECOLANG survey (open until December 2022) and testimonials from students and educational actors. The participants reviewed a range of different approaches and tools for assessing home language competences and discussed both their scope and their limitations, as well as the underlying values. In conclusion the team presented initial recommendations to support the professional development of the different educational actors involved.

36 countries nominated participants for this workshop. In addition to participants from ECML member states and partners from Canada, participants from Georgia, Italy, Portugal, the Russian Federation, Spain, Turkey, and Ukraine took part, thanks to the generous funding of this project through the Council of Europe’s ordinary budget.

[www.ecml.at/homelanguagecompetences]

The network meeting of the Recolang project “Resources for assessing the home language competences of migrant pupils” took place on 15-16 June 2021. The two-day meeting brought together professionals, stakeholders in education and researchers (language teaching, applied linguistics, language evaluation, allophone/plurilingual pupils schooling) from different countries (Denmark, France, Germany, Greece, Hungary, Ireland, Italy, Malta, the Netherlands, Portugal, Switzerland). It marked the first collaborative step of the project.

The meeting, which took place online, comprised presentations, group/pair work, exchange and feedback. Based on discussions on the objectives and role of the evaluation of home language competences and on an analysis of existing materials (representing different contexts), the meeting made it possible to identify initial common criteria and values for setting up this type of evaluation. The meeting allowed for collaborative progress on the modalities to be considered when implementing a formative and plurilingual assessment.

As a follow-up to this meeting and in preparation for the workshop (scheduled for December 2021) and the rest of the project, the network members are invited to disseminate the survey on the status of home languages at school in their networks and to take part in various (online) workshops on the presentation of existing systems (to complete the cartography currently being drawn up) or the conception of materials (for the establishment of the resources databank).

The RECOLANG team (Resources for assessing the home language competences of migrant pupils) is carrying out a European survey on the place of home languages at school, particularly within different education programmes or curricula involving migrant adolescents aged 11-18.

This survey focuses on the practices of assessing home language skills and their role in different European education systems. More detailed information on the survey can be found below.

The survey is made up of two complementary sections aimed at two different target audiences:

• A section aimed at pupils aged between 11 and 18 (or their families), who are from a migrant background and one or more home languages other than the language(s) of the school. This section is available in Arabic, English, French, German, Persian (Dari/Farsi), Portuguese and Turkish: https://surveyforlearners.questionpro.com
• A section for schools and educational institutions, teaching and supervisory staff in schools, reception centres and organisations involved in initial and further professional development of teachers working with this age group (11-18 years). This section is available in English, French, German, Hungarian and Portuguese: https://enqueteinstitutionseducatives.questionpro.com

The survey will be online until the end of 2021. We would be very grateful if you could participate in this survey and disseminate it as widely as possible through your professional networks to anyone who might be interested in this project.

The Recolang project team

Further information :

This survey will provide a better understanding of:

• whether and how pupils' languages and cultures are taken into account at school, and for what educational purpose (in relation to learner progress or to teacher professional development);
• how all language skills and their uses can be recognised in relation to learner progress or to teacher professional development.

This survey is based on numerous research studies which show the importance of taking account of all the languages young people bring with them to school.

Research on plurilingual competence shows us that learning a language (the language of schooling, for example) builds on the other (varieties of) languages that an individual (child, adolescent, adult) has at his or her disposal, in his or her repertoire.

Your opinion on these issues is important. By giving your opinion and sharing your experience, you will be contributing to the debate on integration and education issues related to bi/multilingual audiences, particularly migrants.

Based on the results of this survey, a collaborative workshop with representatives of the European countries involved in the project will provide an opportunity to analyse whether and how home languages are taken into account in the different education systems. This analysis will enable us to reflect on the conditions to be taken into account for formative assessment (adapted to the audiences concerned) of pupils' home language skills.

The results of the survey and the collaborative workshop will make it possible to:

• cooperate in formulating recommendations for European education policy;
• contribute to improving the quality of European education systems and programmes for all pupils.

The Recolang project has been organised as a remote team operation since March 2020. From March to July, the team prepared a first version of the two survey components (see the minutes of the meetings held last March). The survey was then disseminated in a "pre-test" format. Around thirty returns were received (on both parts) from contributors from Austria, Croatia, Denmark, France, Germany, Hungary, Italy, Portugal and Switzerland.

The survey in its "pre-test" version was available for the "institutions" section in English, French and Hungarian, and for the "users" section in Arabic, English, French, Hungarian and Farsi.

The meeting on 6 and 7 October enabled the Recolang project team to prepare the final versions of the survey collectively, on the basis of the feedback received at the end of the test phase. The launch of the survey is scheduled for December 2020. The finalised survey will be available in different languages in the "institution" section (German, English, French, Hungarian, Portuguese) and in the "family" section (German, English, Arabic, French, Parsi, Portuguese, Turkish).

Together, the team is working on the preparation of the first elements for the presentation of assessment systems for family language skills known to the team (Hamburg, Le Mans, in particular). These presentation elements will be posted on the website.

The results of the survey and the elements of known systems will be discussed at the network meeting scheduled for June 2021 in Graz - if the health situation allows: what are the needs of users / which practices and systems have been collected / what are the recommendations for educational policies? This important stage will prepare the collaborative workshop with the various representatives of the member countries taking part in the project (November 21), whose discussions will focus on recommendations for criteria to be taken into account when setting up this type of evaluation adapted to the groups concerned.

Authors: Isabelle Audras, Carole-Anne Deschoux, Françoise Leclaire, Ildikó Lőrincz, Filomena Martins, Ana-Sofia Unkart

• RECOLANG website “Resources for assessing the home language competences of migrant pupils” of the ECML (English - French): www.ecml.at/recolang
• ECML programme of activities 2020-2023 "Inspiring innovation in language education: changing contexts, evolving competences": English - French

The ECML project "Resources for assessing the home language competences of migrant pupils", RECOLANG for short, is the first ever ECML project to be funded through the Ordinary Budget of the Council of Europe and therefore open to all 50 countries signatory to the European Cultural Convention. Its purpose is to raise awareness across Europe of the importance of taking the plurilingual repertoires of all pupils in to account when developing education policies to ensure that together we create more equitable European education systems.

In order to do this, the following steps need to be taken: the collection and analysis of existing practices, programmes and materials for assessing skills in family languages, the formulation of criteria and the production of materials for tailored formative assessment. This assessment will consider the multilingual pathways and repertoires of the learners, thus promoting synergies between language learning and the development of competences in the language(s) of schooling.

The project will begin by undertaking bibliographical research and initiating a survey linked to these issues. The survey will be carried out at European level and will be divided into two parts (one for families and users of assessments and another for teaching and supervisory teams in schools, reception and vocational training centres for young people aged 11-18, including unaccompanied minors). The following data will be collected: the languages of the pupils and their varieties (written / oral), learning conditions (formal or informal; home languages, first, language (s) of schooling, languages learned during the migration path, etc.), as well as the practices / programmes of skills' assessment in these existing languages, possible links to curricula, as well as testimonials from users and other educational stakeholders.

The project team, which brings together 6 experts from 5 European countries, met for the first time on 12-13 March 2020 to launch the new project and start preparing the survey.

Author(s) : I. Audras, C.-A. Deschoux, F. Leclaire, I. Lorincz, F. Martins, A.-S. Unkart

• RECOLANG website (English - French): www.ecml.at/recolang
• ECML programme of activities 2020-2023 "Inspiring innovation in language education: changing contexts, evolving competences": English - French